I think this has been the best episode yet. It’s playing very closely to an X-files episode.
The idea of a gas that could solidify around people and lock them in is a pretty good monster-of-the-week.
I’m liking the Dad more and more week by week.
Was that the guy that got shot or the boyfriend who died in the first episode? I mean the guy they are trying to get inside at the end.
Agree completely with the OP. The guy that got shot was the partner of the girl with the backpack. I’m starting to think that anyone better-looking than Pacey is destined for a bullet.
This show should be convicted of science abuse.
Other than that, it’s improving.
I’m really enjoying this show. I like the idea of “fringe science” and how seemingly paranormal things are explained scientifically (even if it’s bad science). Occasionally the dumbness of the science irritates me but I think it’s improving in that respect. In this episode I was a little confused by one thing - they were questioning why the bus wasn’t attacked in a more conventional means and they speculated that they were trying to draw attention to the event. But in the end it seemed they were just after the disk, and it wasn’t explained why they used the weird gas instead of something that would draw less attention.
That was my first episode; I’m on the fence about it. The sci-fi mystery was fun, but something about the dramatics played a little corny. For example:
[ul]
[li]Josh Jackson yelling at his father, “don’t change the subject!” when he wasn’t changing the subject.[/li]
[li]The overly-stark office (lair?) of the science lab executive.[/li][/ul]
But the blonde is cute. I’ll give it a few more tries.
Oh good, I’m not the only one who can’t tell those chiseled-featured-light-brown-haired adonis types apart. I wasn’t in the room when they explained that they’d brought in the DEA handler to identify the body, so at first I was really confused at the fact that she wasn’t phased by her “dead” BF standing right in front of her.
Which, of course, meant I was also incredible confused when they panned to the guy at the end, since I still can’t tell the two apart.
Seriously. Better casting is needed here. I’m easily confused by handsome white men in suits… they all look the same. 
I find the show entertaining but by the Spaghetti Monster the “science” makes my head hurt. The sad part is that I think that J.J. Abrams actually believes half of the garbage science flying around on this show.
I know trying to make sense of this show is probably an exercise in frustration but a few things this week stuck out even more than normal. OK, the bad guy puts on a gas mask, releases the gas, grabs the backpack and exits the bus. Why the gas mask and why didn’t anyone else get off the bus? The gas solidifies on contact with the air :rolleyes:, trapping the passengers. So how does a gas mask protect you from solidifying air? You could argue that the air in the passengers lungs solidified first, but they were found trapped while trying to make it to the exit, not trapped while rolling around on the floor gasping for breath.
Also, the couple playing with the video camera filmed the woman with the backpack, but they didn’t bother to film the guy putting on a gas mask and throwing a device down the aisle? And, given the mentality these days, how many bus passengers would just sit idly as someone opens a case, pulls out a gas mask, puts it on, pulls out a cylinder, unscrews it then tosses it down the aisle? Wouldn’t someone have done something somewhere along the line?
So the backpack lady was an undercover DEA agent and gas mask guy was her handler. Presumably she knows who he is. So, how does any of this situation make sense? If she does work with him (which seems likely unless we assume the entire FBI and DEA are in on the conspiracy since the DEA put the handler in touch with the FBI) then she should have recognized him when he got on the bus.
If she thought he was on her side then why did he go through the effort of killing everyone on the bus (including her)? He could have just asked her for the Macguffin and she would have given it to him. If she didn’t think he was on her side, then why didn’t she react when he got on the bus, or especially when she saw him pulling out the mask? (It actually looked to me as if she recognized him and put the backpack down where he could see it which means… who knows?)
Maybe he was part of the group she was infiltrating? But when the FBI contacted the DEA they sent gas mask guy over. I just can’t come up with a scenario that makes sense.
And what was with the two students looking for a class. That scene was pretty random…
And we won’t talk about the “Pattern”, Massive Dynamic, cyborg arm lady and whatever is going on between her, Olivia’s boss and why everyone seems interested in Olivia. I keep mentally substituting “DHARMA”, “Rambaldi” and such and it makes just as much sense. (You know, you could replace Olivia with Sydney Bristow, the mad scientist with Sloane and all references to the “Pattern” with “Rambaldi” and this show would be pretty much indistinguishable from Alias.)
Oh well, I’ll probably keep watching, but I’ll keep a bottle of aspirin handy when I do.
I’m pretty sure gas mask guy and DEA handler guy were different people. Like others have said, the “Man in Suit” types can be hard to keep straight (I’m not sure the gas mask guy qualifies for the handsome part; sorry gas mask guy’s mom).
But yes, besides the headache-inducingly bad science, some of the plot points seem…inexplicably stupid.
Speaking of cyborg-arm lady, it looked like she had two good arms and hands in this episode, or maybe she was wearing a skin toned colored glove.
She was wearing the creepy realistic skin glove in the pilot. She peeled it off when she met with Agent Dunham came to talk to her that first time.
Liked the first two ep.s a lot better, but will probably give it another try. Like the 3 main charachters, and the actors who portray them, a lot. Don’t like the overarching bits - the Pattern, Massive Dynamics. Too similar to Dharma and Rambaldi, as was mentioned upthread.
Ah, that saves on the FX budget then…I misremembered the glove as being an black opera glove thingy (to match her outfits).
I like the hilarious Pacey character and daddy Pacey is intriguing.
But I think the comparisons of Olivia to Sidney Bristow are a bit of a stretch. Sidney has mad hand-to-hand skills, is a master of disguise, and has an interesting circle of friends.
Then we have Agent Dumb Blonde filling what appears to be a Seeley Booth role - the tough guy who chases down the bad guys. I find her character bland and completely uninteresting. Duh!-numb has already been duped by the other side as many times as there have been episodes: Agent Scott, Massive Dynamics lady, and her own boss. She relies entirely on the father and son duo, and any equipment needs are ultimately solved by her showing up and asking her boss or Massive Dynamics for what the science guys need.
If the writers aren’t writing incredible strokes of luck and last second miracle wins for her, I have a hard time believing she could have done anything noteworthy. Certainly nothing deserving of the sphincter polishing manner in which her boss and MD lady are salivating over her supposed skills. Is Olivia an Angsty Sue?
p.s.
Jennifer Garner is hotness personified; Anna Torv, eh, not so much. Sorry.
Being interesting in little things like tradecraft, I laughed at how obvious our heroine was in the train station. Stamping around with purpose, trying to act like she’s not, with eyes drilling into everything. It was awful.
Slightly less awful, but still bad enough to notice,as she goes through the train for no good reason, she passes a man in a black suit. It’s a quick cut, only on screen for half a second, and I’m sure a screencap can be found online from others who catalog this shit, but the man she passes in the train, who gives her a Significant Look to which she is Totally Oblivious, is baldy from the next week’s teasers.
I thought I’d posted my comments an hour ago, when I tried to find some sort of screencap or confirmation. And I fell down the rabbit hole of obsessive internet geeks cataloging every clue, easter egg, and dumb coincidence in the episodes. Needless to say, I’m not the only one to notice ol’ baldy.
Well, in their defense, they did put a nameplate on his monitor. So if you remembered the character’s name, you’d be good to go.
So apparently they buried an empty coffin in the opening scene…?
Yeah, a lot about this show bugs me. In every episode are we going to have Denethor saying “I worked on something just like this 20 years ago…”?
But on the other hand, he gets some really good lines. Like, when about to propose the brain surgery experiment: “Is it a requirement that we not kill him?”
My biggest problem with the “solidifying gas” on the bus was the conservation of mass. The solid has to weigh the same as the gas in the canister. So either that was some really heavy gas, or the world’s lightest solid.
I had no problem differentiating the bad guy with the bad DEA handler guy - Gorgeous BlueEyes DEA guy is Peter Hermann. Any watchers of Law & Order: SVU will recognize him.
There’s a real life love story there…he met Mariska Hargitay on the set, they fell in love, got married and now have a two-year old son.
(Not knowing much of anything about chemistry) couldn’t it* just react with the atmosphere and, for example, pull moisture out of the air, therefor adding to it’s mass.
*by ‘it’ I’m saying in general, not this case specifically.
In theory…but the mass of the moisture inside the bus + mass of the gas inside the canister would still have to = mass of the solid inside the bus. And the moisture couldn’t weigh that much.
What was the mass of the solid inside the buss?